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Chia

Squirrel tail

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How do you harvest them? Just cutting them off bones and all leaves bone and some gristle that can putrify. Making a circular cut in the skin around the base of the tail and stripping the tail off the skeletal tail structure leaves very little behind to "go bad". Same for deer tails....But you have to split them down the middle and cure them with salt after scraping off any fat.

 

Fox squirrel tail is a useful, mobile, barred streamer wing material for streamers but you cannot clump it up at the tie-down area as it will prove bulky and the hard hair will often slip no matter how hard you crank down on it. It is best used sparsely in tapered layers tied down with good glue,

 

Rocco

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I use a lot of squirrel tails in tying. The guard hairs make good nymph tails and the underfur makes a good dubbin. Have also used the guard hairs to make wing cases and legs like you would with pheasant tail.

 

To cure them all I do is lop them off close to the body after I whack one in the noggin with the .17hmr or .22. When I bring them home I pull down the skin around the stub of the tail and expose whatever meat is still on the stub, down to where it thins. Then I grab that stub with pliers and use a razor type box cutting knife to cut it away. Then put a half inch or so of salt in a small container like a soda can cut in half and stick the tail stub down into it, letting it sit like that in a cool, dry place for a couple of weeks while occasionally checking them and making sure clean salt is surrounding the stub. Then I switch the salt with deeper borax and let the stub part of the tails sticking in that for another couple of weeks. Then they go into the freezer for a week or so, then out to let whatever eggs might be on them hatch, then back into the freezer for a week or more to kill them. Then they go into a big ziplock laying flat until I need them to tie something amazing. :)

 

Some folks advocate microwaving the tails for 15 or 20 seconds to kill the bugs, but I've just use the freeze/thaw/freeze sequence and so far so good.

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Are bugs really an issue on a fresh kill? Fleas maybe but dawn dish soap takes care of them.

 

I know with roadkill bugs that are going to eat at the fur and Caracas are getting in there but the squirrel was just alive and well lol

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Snipping the bone at the butt, place in a box lid, covering with table salt and let it sit a couple months is all I do. If needed wash with warm water and dish soap and let dry in the sun. The wife will get pissed if you use all her table salt but I save it from tail - tail and do the same with bucktail (boned) and other pelts and furs I use for tying. The squirrel pelt is also great for dubbing. Finding a place to place the tray with the tails isn't a big deal as long as its dry, I have a spot in our mud room and/or a corner of my garage.

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My garage is detached and not very well insulated. It tends to be damp in the winter. Might be better for summer squirrels. There seem to be several methods for this. With fear of getting ahead of myself, how do you harvest the fur for dubbing?

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My garage is detached and not very well insulated. It tends to be damp in the winter. Might be better for summer squirrels. There seem to be several methods for this. With fear of getting ahead of myself, how do you harvest the fur for dubbing?

for me, dubbing is too cheap to mess with making my own unless its coyotee or something I have a hard time finding, best way to make dubbing is take a pair of hair clippers and shave your animal or skin put in jar with lid add water just to cover shake vigorously. drain and squeeze water out of fur ball spread on paper towel to dry, the shake in the water just mixes everything up this is when you could add things like flash guard hairs ect...

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I've been collecting late autumn (only) road kill squirrels for years because the hair is prime at that time of year. I only collect freshly killed squirrels, take them home, cut the tail at the base of the rump, discard the body, wash the tail (bone intact) well in a saturated solution of warm water and 20 Mule Team Borax, squeeze excess water solution from tail by running thru my hand, hang to drip dry over the laundry tub overnight, them hang in the fly room by mono and a fish hook stuck into the cut end flesh.

After a day of two, I run the tail thru my fingers to fluff up the hair then let it dry for as long as it takes for the inner bone to harden straight.

After about a week or so, I place the tail into a tight rim RubberMade container with the rest of the cured tails. Moth ball placed into the container for bug free storage over the long term.

Never had a problem in 40 years.

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I answered on the other post, but I'll do so here, too.

I don't use Squirrel. Just because Florida squirrel tails aren't much more than hazy rat tails. I don't think there's enough on the whole tail to do a dozen flies. Anyway, I do use freshly killed raccoon tails. I just stick them in a jar filled with kitty litter. Dries them out quickly, keeps them dry forever. I leave them in there when I am not using one.

The kitty litter dust kill bugs, too. Chokes their breathing passages and dries them out.

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My garage is detached and not very well insulated. It tends to be damp in the winter. Might be better for summer squirrels. There seem to be several methods for this. With fear of getting ahead of myself, how do you harvest the fur for dubbing?

Squirrel tail hair is useful for wet fly and streamer wings but not dubbing. You just clip a clump off the tail when you need it.

 

Squirrel body fur makes good dubbing. Skin the squirrel, then and dry or tan the hide and store it. (I just buy a prepared hide when I need one; they're pretty cheap and it's not nearly as messy.) When you need dubbing, trim fur from the hide as closely as you can with scissors or an electric shaver, then blend it in your fingers if it's a relatively small amount. If you're doing a big batch all at once you can blend it in water the way josephcsylvia suggests up above instead. I usually trim it in batches and store it in a zip-loc, but you could also just keep it on the skin and trim what you need one fly at a time.

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I could see purchasing a tanned hide, but I agree tanning it my self would be a little more than I am into at the moment.

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Are bugs really an issue on a fresh kill? Fleas maybe but dawn dish soap takes care of them.

 

I know with roadkill bugs that are going to eat at the fur and Caracas are getting in there but the squirrel was just alive and well lol

 

Maybe yes, maybe no, but do you want to take the chance needlessly? All kinds of bugs could be on alive and well critters, including ticks, mites, etc. I wouldn't want to depend on dish soap to get rid of them all - have way too much time and money invested in the tying materials in the area where the tails are kept long term.

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